


a million dreams (is all it's gonna take)

by enchantedrcse



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Enjoyyyy, M/M, Modern AU, and also just carlos appreciation, cruella is a supportive mom, just something soft in honor of camerons bday, this is mainly carlos centric but theres benlos, this was actually an au that my friends and i came up with a while ago!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:09:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24423307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchantedrcse/pseuds/enchantedrcse
Summary: in which carlos has a passion that turns a dream into a reality.(dedicated to cameron boyce. ♡)
Relationships: Ben/Carlos de Vil
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	a million dreams (is all it's gonna take)

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys. its been a whie since ive written but i really wanted to do something special for cameron's birthday. he brought carlos de vil to life in such a special way and his character is very important to me and probably to a lot of other people as well. he was such an amazingly talented and kind person, and he left a huge and important mark on the world. 
> 
> hope you guys enjoy. ♡

Carlos and his friends have just graduated from high school, and everyone was relieved from the weight of studies off their shoulders but also disappointed to say goodbye to their friends. Blue caps being thrown into the air and cheers erupt from the graduates, their supporting family and friends, and other classmates. It was an outdoor ceremony, and the sky turned a beautiful shade of blue and the clouds the dreamiest shade of pink. Mal, Evie, Audrey, and Uma share a tearful group hug while Jay, Gil and Harry are already racing to the table to be the first ones to get a piece of cake. 

Carlos smiles as he watches Ben, his boyfriend of 3 months, take pictures with his mom and dad. Ben sees him and tells his mom he’ll be right back, to which he runs up to the smaller boy and pulls him into a tight hug. 

“I’m gonna text you literally every minute while I’m in France.” Ben says with teary eyes as he pulls away and Carlos laughs.

“You don’t need to worry about me, I’ll be fine.” he says reassuringly. “I am gonna miss you like hell, though.” 

“I’ll be back before you know it and we can hang out as much as you want. I’ll tell you all about it.” Ben wipes a tear from his eye, and suddenly he’s being approached by a rather impatient Belle who tells him to hurry up because  _ “Grandpa wants a picture.”  _

“I’ll be calling you later tonight.” is the last thing Carlos says before Ben kisses his forehead and lets his mom escort him over to his other family. 

The next person he approaches is his mother Cruella, who’s looking at him with a proud and wide smile, tears filling up in her eyes. She engulfs him in a hug and tells him how unbelievably proud she is of her son, and he feels a lump in his own throat. 

“Mom, stop,” he laughs softly. “You’re gonna make me start crying.” 

“Alright, alright. I’ll save the tears for later.” She jokes, before lifting the blue gift bag she held in her hand. “I have your gift, and I think you might like it.” 

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” 

“Of course I did, honey! You deserve it.” She moves a stray curl out of his face. “Trust me, you’re gonna love it.” 

He takes the gift bag and takes the item out of it. His smile grows bigger when he sees that the song he wrote in middle school (on a very crumpled up piece of paper) had been framed. 

Carlos knew from an early age that he loved music. He basically grew up loving it in every genre and all its forms, from listening to vinyls of jazz music from in between the 20s and the 50s, to show tunes, to whatever pop hits were playing on the radio. Being quite the genius he is, according to his friends, he was passionate about music just as much as his love for technology. 

He always thought of his love of music as a way of self expression. He thinks it tells stories far more in depth than words can describe, much like dancing. 

  
  


From what he could remember the earliest experience he’s had with songwriting was in middle school, two weeks before the school talent show. He started out with a couple lyrics out of curiosity, and a spark of inspiration led to those lyrics becoming verses and choruses, and his first ever song had manifested itself. Rehearsing it multiple times didn’t exactly give him a lot of confidence in himself, since this was new for him. He could feel the impending anxiety as each student finishes their performance, knowing that he was going to be up soon. Mal, Evie, Jay, and Ben were by his side soothing his stage fright and making sure they cheered the loudest for him when he finished his performance. They were immensely supportive of him, as friends should be, and that made him realize that  _ hey, maybe this wasn’t a total fail.  _ From that day on, Carlos thought he should do this more often.

  
  


He feels his heart grow warm as the memory of the talent show comes up in his mind like he never forgot it. He hadn’t had the time to write any music though, since finals and college applications were eating him alive. 

“I stumbled upon it one day and thought it was perfect.” Cruella explains. 

“I had almost forgotten about that. That was a good day.” Carlos says, as he examines each detail of the gift with adoration and chuckles from his slightly not neat penmanship at the time. 

“And you shouldn’t forget it, Carlos.” She says in a softer, more sincere tone. “You’ve got quite a gift. Besides, I know how passionate you are about music. You can go far with that.”

Cruella was already fond with his knack for technology and wasn’t surprised at how many science fairs he’s won consecutively, but his songwriting does surprise her, and she wants him to embrace that. 

Carlos looks up from the gift with hopeful eyes. “You think so?” 

“Honey, I know so.” 

“Thanks, Mom. I love you.” Carlos says as Cruella brings him in for another hug. 

“I love you too, hun. Now let’s go get cake, I’m starving.” 

Somehow, that love of music evolved into a dream to write and record music of his own, seriously this time. He has this goal set for himself, but now he has to figure out how to do it.

\--

Once he arrives home from the school, he’s instantly greeted by Dude loudly barking and pawing at his ankles. He picks the small dog up into his arms as Dude happily kisses his face. As he puts him back down, a thought pops into his head. Him and his mom had just moved into the new house a few months ago, and there were rooms that were still empty and unused. 

And then the idea clicks: a home studio. 

He thinks it's quite perfect because with the extensive knowledge of technology he has, he already knows what equipment to use. Also him having a musical talent with more than one instrument, the goal is practically manifesting itself in his favor. He tells Cruella one day, and she’s just as excited as he is, and even offers to help him purchase some of the equipment if he can’t do it all. He decides on the room in the basement that leads into the garage, and it’s perfectly proportionate to fit everything in. 

So he gets not one but  _ two  _ summer jobs, working a day shift as a dog walker and then the night shift as an employee at the Tale As Old As Time bookstore that Ben’s mom owns. The stress of it all, from the sometimes uncooperative dogs he has to handle to the snarky asshole customers who can’t seem to understand that a book isn’t in stores because it’s sold out, consumes him. But the thing is, he  _ really _ wants this studio. He wants his dream to come true, even if he has to put himself through hell and back to do so. 

There would be times where he’d work a little  _ too  _ hard, to the point where he gets too stressed, and it concerns his mom enough to tell him to step back and take a breather. He does, and he finds himself in his room again in his journal, writing any and every idea for song lyrics until he can make sense of them. He takes deep breaths, and realizes the very thing he was doing was calming him down. He makes it a habit from then on to write whenever he’d feel on edge or overwhelmed. 

Nevertheless, his hard work starts to pay off and work in his favor. He was able to purchase all the equipment and was practically buzzing with excitement when everything came together. With the help of his mom, the studio was constructed in a matter of weeks. He’d stay up for hours, energized with caffeine and pure happiness, building the soundboard and testing everything out. When Carlos had called Cruella to see the finished product, she was almost instantly brought to tears because she was so happy to see her son’s dream become a reality. 

Once he adds the finishing touches to the studio, the very first thing he does is call up his friends, because after all they were the ones who were always checking up on him and the ones he always would rant to on bad days. In about a half an hour, Carlos welcomes them in and they greet him and Cruella with hugs, saying how much they’ve missed him since graduation. 

“Okay guys,” Carlos started once they were all seated on the couch. “I have a pretty big announcement to make. I spent a lot of time on this.” 

A gasp can be heard from Audrey. “Are you and Ben getting married?” 

Ben looks at his boyfriend swiftly with a raised eyebrow, as if he had missed some sort of memo some time before he went on vacation. “We’re getting married?” 

“What? No! The announcement isn't _ that  _ big.” Carlos clarifies. “But anyway, you know how I’ve told you guys I’ve kinda taken song writing seriously, right?” 

He earns a nod from the group, and he smiles. “Well, I might or might not have spent the majority of the summer working to make my own little studio.” 

“You’re kidding!” Evie interjects excitedly. 

Carlos motions the others to follow him as they walk from the living down to the basement area. He opens the door, revealing it in all it’s glory and his friends gasped and gaped with awe. 

“No fucking way!” Mal exclaims. “Dude, this is amazing! You did all of this in a month and a half?” 

“Yeah,” Carlos laughs. “Took me a lot but I managed to.” 

“You really outdid yourself on this one.” Uma adds, smiling. “I’m proud of you, freckles.” 

The shorter girl pulls her best friend into a hug, followed by Mal and Evie and Audrey until he was surrounded by his friends showering him with love and appreciation. And he feels that appreciation, he feels  _ loved.  _

\-- 

A couple more weeks go by, and Carlos is hanging out at his house with Harry and Uma. It’s late at night, 3 a.m. to be exact, and they were everything but sleepy. So Uma suggests maybe they can hang out in the studio and maybe record something, and Carlos was more than happy to do that. Uma was sat behind the mic, subconsciously humming whatever tune came into her head whilst Harry softly played some chords on Carlos’s acoustic guitar. Suddenly, an idea pops up into his head when he asks Uma to keep humming whatever that was. It became a melody, which led to lyrics, and the impromptu session became a fully fledged song. The next time he records a song is with Ben. They had just come back from a date at the local arcade, and luckily inspiration struck when Ben drove them back to his place. 

Soon enough, it became a habit, almost a normal thing for his friends to come over just to write and record and soon enough he was spending more time in the studio than his actual room. 

And it was like  _ magic _ in a sense, that same magic he felt performing his first song in middle school. He was happy and creating and surrounded by the people he loves the most and wanted nothing else in the world but this. 

It felt like a dream come true. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed make sure you leave comments and kudos. love youuuuu


End file.
